Fireman/Trimmer Henry Winfield Douglas Baker—Perished at Sea August 28, 1940

Henry Winfield Douglas Baker was born at Marie Joseph, Guysborough County, on September 24, 1913, the son of Charles Henry and Marion Louise (Douglas) Baker. Douglas’s father Charles was also a native of Marie Joseph, where he worked as a fish-buyer and operated a local inn. Douglas’s paternal grandfather Henry was a local merchant.

Douglas Baker's name on the Halifax Memorial—1940 Merchant Marine Fatalities

While Douglas’s mother Marion was residing at Spanish Ship Bay at the time of her marriage to Henry, she was born at Liverpool, England, the daughter of David Douglas, whose occupation is listed as “navigator” on the couple’s marriage license.

Born and raised in a coastal community, Douglas made a living at sea. His 1932 marriage license lists his occupation as “fisherman.” On August 20 of that year, the 19-year-old married Nellie Alice Croft, age 18, a native of Gegoggin and daughter of Jacob E. and Maria Jane (MacDonald) Croft. The following year, the couple welcomed a son Wendell into their home.

At some point prior to or shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Douglas joined the crew of the freighter SS Kyno. Built in the shipyard of Goole, east of Leeds, UK, the 4,000-ton vessel was completed in 1924 and operated by Ellerman’s Wilson Line [EWL], located at nearby Hull, UK. The Kyno became part of EWL’s considerable trans-Atlantic commercial fleet.

SS Kyno

Following Britain’s September 3, 1939, declaration of war on Germany, the Kyno joined the merchant marine fleet that carried crucial supplies from North American to the United Kingdom throughout the Second World War. The vessels traveled in convoys, following a number of different routes across the North Atlantic, depending on their final destination.

Aboard the Kyno, Douglas worked as a fireman and trimmer, two tasks critical to the operation of a coal-fired, steam-powered vessel. Firemen maintained the furnaces that generated the steam required to power the boat, while trimmers ensured that there was a constant supply of coal available in the furnace room. These men laboured in the ship’s hot and treacherous “stokehold,” where the prospects of escape, in the event that a torpedo struck the vessel, were poor.

On August 16, 1940, the Kyno, under the command of Master William Andsell Thompson, departed from Halifax, NS, destined for the United Kingdom. The vessel was part of Convoy HX-66, and followed the designated “HX” route, travelling northeastward past Newfoundland’s Avalon peninsula to the southern tip of Greenland. The ships then steamed eastward past Iceland before curving southward into the Irish Sea toward their final destination at Liverpool.

At this point in the war, Germany’s U-boats operated only on the European side of the North Atlantic, as the United States did not enter the conflict until early December 1941. Prowling the waters west of the British Isles, the submarines sought to intercept a convoy and launch a night-time attack on its ships. As HX-66 passed south of Iceland and veered southeastward toward the waters between Scotland and Ireland, the German submarine U-28, under the command of Korvettehapitän Günter Kuhnke—one of Germany’s top "U-boat Aces"—spotted Convoy HX-66 and prepared to attack.

At 2057 hours August 28, 1940, a torpedo from U-28 struck SS Kyno when the vessel was located approximately 50 kilometres north-northeast of Rockall, an uninhabited granite islet approximately 400 kilometres west of South Uist, Scotland. While 32 of its crew members were able to scramble into lifeboats as the vessel sank, five men perished as the Kyno slipped beneath the water. All were part of the engine room crew—three firemen and trimmers, one “donkeyman” [the person in charge of the engine room] and the ship’s second engineer officer.

Douglas Baker was one of the three firemen/trimmers lost at sea in the SS Kyno’s sinking. His name is engraved on the Halifax Memorial, erected in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, in memory of the men and women of the navy, army and merchant navy who perished at sea during the Second World War.  Douglas was Guysborough County’s first Second World War fatality.

Halifax Memorial, Point Pleasant Park

 After her husband’s passing, Nellie married Henry Schrider and gave birth to a second son, Harvey. She passed away at Halifax on August 22, 2002, and was laid to rest in St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Liscomb. Wendell, her son by her first marriage, passed away at Oxford, NS, on October 12, 2013.